Sales Strategy, Part III

OK, this is the last post in this little series. So far we talked about saving your customers life cycle money and making your prospects money and both seemed like weak positions in the current economy. So what’s left?

Save your customers money today.

Companies are looking at their costs on a monthly, weekly, and even daily basis right now and juggling receivables, payables and cash like never before. Layoffs and destroyed retirement accounts are on everyone’s mind.

What your customers need is a way to spend a little cash today that results in direct savings next week. That is how they can save jobs and maybe even their company.

So your sales challenge is to package and market your product/service in such a way that your prospect (1) can afford it, and (2) can use it to immediately save cash. (for reference, more sales for them does not equate to money savings – remember that).

This is a key idea and a key post for you to re-read so that you are not emptying out your sales funnel by using the wrong sales strategy.

Imagine you sell tooling to a tier one automotive supplier. Wow, you might as well give up, ‘eh? Well, what if you could propose them a new material that lasts twice as long as what they currently use and they only need to pay for your direct costs up front, so their cash outlay is actually less than the cheaper material and they have less change-over costs because your material lasts longer.

You cover your direct costs, so you’re keeping people working, and you can work out when and how you get the rest of your premium price.

This is no where near my favorite selling strategy, but I’m seeing it work time and time again for my clients in this crazy market, so give it a try and let us know how you make out.